This is the story of how I met my wife.
Thomas Jefferson High... That's where I went to school. We were a little over halfway through our junior year when my wife and I first met. That's when fate first fell into my lap. Oh that fickle finger of fate. I suppose most guys owe the meeting of their wives to fate. It certainly played a role in mine. Yeah, a King Kong sized role.
Of course I knew who she was long before we actually met. Her name was Jeannie Bowman, and everyone knew who she was. Jeannie was that exceptionally pretty cheerleader with a bounce in her step and an amazing smile. She was a star gymnast, and on the student council. She had the lead role in nearly every school play, and she helped plan every dance and rally.
From where I sat, it seemed like Jeannie practically ran the place. Okay, so she didn't actually run the school, but somehow she managed to be involved in almost everything. To say she was popular is an understatement. She was the queen of the school, and it's sad to say, I was another one of the dorks. I am certain Jeannie had no idea I even existed. Not until that fateful day anyway.
I was in gym class the day that fate stepped in. Or more precisely, I was avoiding gym class. I always tried to avoid gym class.
I'm not sure why I tried so hard to avoid gym. It could have been that an odd late growth spurt had made my gym shirt way too small. Or maybe it was the fact that I was incredibly awkward and uncoordinated, due to that same late growth. Or it might have been how I could barely see through the dorky strap-on sports glasses my mom insisted I wear so that I wouldn't break my so called good pair... Whatever the cause, I really hated gym.
So like I said, I was trying to avoid gym class. I was there. Actually in the gym that day. I was even what the coaches called 'dressed out'; which amounted to a pair of shorts in the official school color, that shirt that was three sizes too small, and a pair of Chuck Taylors my mom found at a yard sale. Yeah I was there... but I was doing everything I could to disappear so I wouldn't have to play whatever flavor of dodgeball that Coach Garett had come up with that day.
Of course we didn't always play dodgeball, but no matter what we played I always ended up getting hit, smacked, tripped, tackled, or otherwise slammed to the floor. So in gym I always just tried to blend into the walls. And if ever there was a day to blend into the walls, this particular day was the one.
Like most high schools, there were separate gyms for boys and girls at Jefferson. Well sort of. The separation of our boy's and girl's gyms came by the way of a movable wall that could be pushed aside for school dances and basketball games. And that fateful day, the movable wall between the two gyms was wide open.
Coach Garett had done his best drill sargent routine and barked out strict orders that all of us boys were to stay on our side of the gym, and I am sure the girls had been told the same. That didn't mean much to me. No one had to cross that invisible line for the girls to be able to see me. The last thing I needed was to pull one of my famous dork moves and plant my face on the floor with all of those girls watching.
I wasn't worried though. I had a plan that day. There was a big space behind the bleachers, next to the emergency exit. This space was usually filled with gymnastics equipment, volleyball nets and stacks of gym mats. Most days I would hide behind those mats until gym class was over, then I'd run out and act like I was exhausted from playing whatever game it was that Coach Garret had ordered.
So this particular day I made a bee line to my hiding place, and everything was going according to plan. Then these three football jocks came along. These muscle headed morons grabbed me and shoved me out of my hiding place. Right out into the open. Right into the girl's side of the gym. Yes, the very place that Coach Drill Sargent had clearly ordered us all to stay the hell out of.
I had to get out of there. I couldn't be seen on the girl's side of the gym. If the coach saw me he'd probably have me doing pushups and washing jock straps for the rest of my life. I immediately looked back toward the stacks of mats to see if I could find other place to hide. All I could see was those jocks huddled down in my space exchanging money.
I may have been a dork back then, but I still knew what was going on. Those jocks were doing some kind of a drug deal. One of the jocks saw me looking at them and yelled, "Turn around dork." Then another one ordered me to look the other way as he shook a clenched fist at me, clearly offering to hurt me if I didn't do as I was told.
Not wanting to get my ass kicked, I quickly turned my back to them and found myself standing right in front of none other than Jeannie Bowman. She couldn't have been more than 10 feet away, and she was looking right at me. My god, she was pretty. Unlike mine, her gym uniform fit her perfectly. She looked like an angel, and she was smiling at me.
The next thing I knew, I felt my gym shorts being ripped down from behind. Then I heard the jocks laughing hysterically as they bolted out through the emergency exit.
Okay, now I had a problem. A huge Godzilla sized problem. Earlier that day I'd had a little accident. Not a huge fill your drawers sort of accident, but one of those I thought it was just a fart sort of accidents. At any rate, my underwear was securely stowed away at the bottom of dirty rag can in the metal shop.
So there I stood... right in front of Jeannie Bowman with my shorts around my ankles and my pecker hanging out.
I was stunned. I just stood there frozen looking at Jeannie. Her mouth was agape and her eyes were wide as she fixated on my exposed genitals. What seemed like an eternity, probably only lasted a few seconds, but I was able to gathered my wits and reached down to pull up my shorts. That's when old lady Ball Buns grabbed my arm and nearly jerked me off my feet.
Old lady Ball Buns was the head of the girl's gym department. Her real name was Ms. Shopper, and at nearly 60 years old was the only weightlifting coach Jefferson's football team had ever had. She was as strong as an ox, and her big muscular ass looked like she had stuffed a couple of basket balls into her shorts. That's why everyone called her Ball Buns.
To go along with that big muscular ass, Ms. Shopper had a grip that was as strong as any man's. The moment she grabbed me I tried to yank my arm away, but it was no use. With her vice like grip and that big muscular ass she was dragging me off to her office, and there wasn't much I could do about it. Jeannie was tagging along by her side, just as old lady Ball Buns had ordered.
I resisted as much as I thought I could get away with, but Ball Buns had all the authority here. Even if I could have struggled loose, it wasn't like I was going anywhere. Still I resisted like a protestor being hauled off to the paddy wagon. In reality all managed to do was drag my big clumsy feet on the floor while I tried to pull my shorts up using the arm that Ball Buns didn't have a death grip on.
Being dragged off by Ms. Shopper with my shorts halfway down wasn't the worst part. The worst part was that both gyms instantly fell completely silent. Not a ball was bounced or a whistle blown, as two hundred of my fellow students watched me being marched across the gym with my hand covering my crotch and my ass hanging out.
Then I heard a raucous roar of laughter break out in the gym as Ms. Shopper's office door slammed shut behind us. With the entire gym going nuts outside the office, and Jeannie just gawked at me while I pulled my shorts the rest of the way up. Ms. Shopper mumbled something about the lack of maturity these days and plopped her giant ass in her chair on the other side of her desk. Then the old battle axe went on the attack...
